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PRESENT 



DISCONTENTS 



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Edmund Burke. 



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ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— No. 118. 



Present Discontents. 



BY 



Edmund Burke. 




Btrttetr totttr Kutrotructfou autr tKtote.^ 



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A Bkief Biogkaphy of Bukke. 

Edmund Burke was born of Irish parents, in Dublin, 1729, or, 
according to E.J. Payne, one of his editors, Jan. 1, 1730, O.S. ; was 
one of fifteen children ; father, a solicitor in good practice ; 
mother, a Miss Nagle before marriage, a Roman Catholic ; her 
daughters brought up in that faith, but Edmund and his brothers 
were bred in their father's religion ; a pupil in 1741 at Balitore, 
30 miles from Dublin, of the Quaker, Abraham Shackleton ; hon- 
ored and loved this teacher and his son ; an omniverous reader, 
passionately fond of Virgil especially ; took his bachelor's degree 
at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1748; a contemporary there of 
Goldsmith ; went to London, 1750 ; supported there by his father 
for six years, during which time he was studying law ; thought 
that law "does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding 
than all the other kinds of learning put together, but it is not apt 
to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion ;" 
a member of Macklin's debating society, 1754 ; gave up all notion 
of law as a profession and adopted literature. 

Married, in 1756 probably, a Miss Nugent, a Catholic, though 
conforming afterwards to her husband's religion. Birrell says, 
• * Burke's wife was also the offspring of a ' mixed marriage,' only 
in her case it was the father who was a Catholic; consequently, 
Mr. and Mrs. Burke were of the same way of thinking, but each 
had a parent of the other way ;" Vindication of Natural Society 
{in imitation and in ridicule of Bolingbroke's attack upon Christian- 
ity), and A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on 
the Sublime and Beautiful, 1756 ; allowed £200 a year by his 
father, 1756 ; editor, 1758-1788, at £100 a year, of the Annual 
Register, a summary of the great events of the world ; Account of 
European Settlements in America, and Abridgment of English 
History, 1757 ; secretary of the Chief Secretary of Ireland, Wm. 
Gerard Hamilton, 1761-63 ; Hamilton got Burke a pension of £300 

3 



4 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BURKE. 

a year from the Irish treasury; and then, supposing he owned 
him, H. sought to hold Burke exclusively in his service. Burke 
threw up the pension, and then denounced H. as an infamous 
scoundrel. 

After sowing the seeds of war with the Colonies, Grenville's 
ministry was dismissed, 1765 ; Lord Rockingham came into power, 
with Burke as his private secretary ; Rockingham's ministry 
in office one year and twenty days ; Burke's intellectual superi- 
ority acknowledged by all the members of Rockingham's cabinet 
and party ; Burke, M. P. for Wendover, 1765 ; maiden speech in 
House of Commons, Jan. 27, 1766, complimented by Pitt ; spoke 
on the complaints of the American Colonies a little later ; bought 
a house and an estate of 600 (Birrell says 1600) acres in Bucking- 
hamshire, 24 miles from London, for £22,000, 1768 or 1769 ; £14,000 
remained on mortgage till Mrs. B. sold the estate in 1812 ; always 
desperately in debt, though Dr. Brocklesburg gave him £1000, 
Reynolds £4000, Garrick lent him £1000, and his obligations to 
Lord Rockingham, amounting to £30,000, were canceled at Lord 
R.'s death, in 1782 ; Observations on the Present State of the Nation, 
1769 ; a tireless pamphleteer ; pamphlet on Present Discontents; 
1770 ; denied that he was the author or that he knew the author 
of the Letters of Junius. 

Burke on the American side in our Revolutionary struggle ; his 
" attitude in this great contest is that part of his history about 
the majestic and noble wisdom of which there can be least dis- 
pute ;" in France, 1773, and saw the dauphiness, Marie Antoinette, 
" decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to 
move in ;" Speech on Relief of Protestant Dissenters, 1773 ; M. P. 
for Bristol, 1774-80 ; Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 
1774, on Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775, and the 
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777, " compose the most perfect 
manual in our literature, or in any literature, for one who ap- 
proaches the study of public affairs ;" Address to the King, 1777 ; 
Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, 1778 ; Speech on Economic 
Reform, 1780 ; M. P. for Malton, 1780 ; made paymaster of the 
forces, with a salary of £4000, 1780. 

Member of the famous Literary Club founded by Reynolds in 
1764 ; fellow-members were Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Dr. 
Burney, Fox, Gibbon, Sheridan, Adam Smith, Langton, Wind- 



A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BURKE. 

liarn, Garrick, Beauclerk, and others. Johnson the autocrat, but 
Burke the most learned and able ; club met at Turk's Head, 
Gerard street, Monday evenings ; Burke munificently generous 
and hospitable ; used his great influence in behalf of the poor and 
modest Crabbe, and was sympathetic with all sorts and conditions 
of men struggling for a living ; Speech on Fox's East India Bill, 
1783 ; Speech on Nabob of Arcofs Debts, 1785 ; the great "man- 
ager " in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, begun February, 
1788, and ending April, 1795, the opening scene of which is so 
graphically pictured by Macaulay ; the case before the House of 
Lords 148 days, Burke speaking 14; " Hasting's acquitted, but 
tyranny, deceit, and injustice condemned ;" Reflections on the 
French Revolution, 1790 ; breaks off with his best of friends, Fox, 
1790 ; Appeal from the New to the Old Wliigs, Letter to a Mem- 
ber of the National Assembly, and Thoughts on French Affairs, 
1-791 ; Observations on Conduct of the Ministry and Remarks on 
Policy of Allies, 1793 ; death of his only son, Richard, August, 
1794, put an end to the project for making Burke Lord Beacons- 
field ; Report on the Lords' Journals, 1794 ; retired from Parlia- 
ment, 1794 ; Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 1795 ; Letter to a 
Noble Lord audi Letters on Regicide Peace, 1795 ; death, July, 1797, 
in the 68th year of his age. 



General Remarks on Present Discontents. 

Present Discontents seems to have been written as a letter and 
addressed to a retired member of Parliament, a Mr. White. It 
was then recast as a pamphlet and submitted for criticism to the 
chiefs of the Rockingham faction of the Whig party — the faction 
to which Mr. Burke belonged. But * ' every line of the work is 
unmistakably from the pen of Burke." 

It is not, perhaps, Burke's most characteristic production. It 
was written before he came fully to his mastery of his great 
powers. It is not a speech. The topic did not stimulate his 
imagination to its utmost, make heavy drafts upon his exhaust- 
less stores of learning, or call for his wonted copious, exuberant, 
and splendid diction and resplendent rhetoric. Says E. J. Payne, 
the editor of his " Select Works " for the Clarendon Press Series, 
" The Present Discontents is a political pamphlet of the old 
school. The style is mainly pedestrian, relieved by some touches 
of humor, and by a few passages of a descriptive character. It 
contains much solid reasoning, but no rhetoric except that of facts 
or alleged facts. Great attention has been paid to style and 
finish, though no superfluities have been admitted, and there is a 
certain affectation of plainness intended to sustain the author's 
assumed character of a private citizen. The facts are admirably 
marshaled, and it is clear that long meditation in the author's 
mind has given the principal arguments a well-rounded form. . . . 
The pamphlet itself seems to have been commenced shortly after 
the unusually early prorogation of Parliament in May, 1769, 
when the turbulence of the freeholders of Middlesex was extend- 
ing to the country at large." 

Mr. John Morley says, "The king [George III.] intended to 
reassert the old right of choosing his own ministers. George II. 
had made strenuous but futile endeavors to the same end. His 
son, the father of George III., Frederick, Prince of Wales, was 
equally bent on throwing off the yoke of the great Whig combina- 

7 



8 GENERAL REMARKS ON PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

tions and making his own cabinets. George III. was only con- 
tinuing the purpose of his father and his grandfather." 

Contrasting Burke's pamphlet with Swift's tract On the Conduct 
of the Allies, 1711, of which Morley says, "There is not a sen- 
tence in it which does not belong exclusively to the matter in 
hand, not a line of that general wisdom which is for all time," 
Mr. Morley adds, " In the Present Discontents the method is just 
the opposite of this. The details are slurred, and they are not 
literal. Burke describes with excess of elaboration how the new 
system is a system of double cabinets — one put forward with 
nominal powers in Parliament; the other concealed behind the 
throne, and secretly dictating the policy." 

There is no single speech of Burke which can convey a satis- 
factory idea of his powers of mind. To do him justice, it would 
be necessary to quote all his works : the only specimen of Burke 
is, all he wrote. — Hazlitt. 

Burke will always be read with delight and edification, because 
in the midst of discussions on the local and the accidental, he 
scatters apophthegms that take us into the regions of lasting 
wisdom. Burke is among the greatest of those who have wrought 
marvels in the prose of our English tongue. — John Morley. 

"As an eloquent and philosophic political character, Burke 
stands alone. His intellect was at once exact, minute, and com- 
prehensive, and his imagination rich and vigorous. As to his 
style, he is remarkable for the copiousness and freedom of his 
diction, the splendor and great variety of his imagery, his aston- 
ishing command of general truths, and the ease with which he 
seems to wield those fine weapons of language, which most writers 
are able to manage only by the most anxious care." 



Thoughts on the 
Cause»of the Pbesent Discontents. 



INTRODUCTION. 



1.* Discontent in General. — It is an undertaking of some 
degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disor- 
ders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an inquiry, he 
will be thought weak and visionary ; if he touches the true 
grievance, there is a danger that he may come near to persons 5 
of weight and consequence, who will rather be exasperated at 
the discovery of their errors than thankful for the occasion of 
correcting them. If he should be obliged to blame the favor- 
ites of the people, he will be considered as the tool of power ; 
if he censures those in power, he will be looked on as an in- 10 
strument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something 
is to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law 
has invested every man, in some sort, with the authority of a 
magistrate. 

When the affairs of the nation are distracted, private people 15 
are, by the spirit of that law, justified in stepping a little out 

13. May be summoned by the officer to assist him . 
15. Burke, though an M.P., writes as a private citizen. 



* The framework, consisting of chief points, divisions, and subdivisions, 
marked with Roman and Arabic notation and with letters, is the work of 
the editor, though the material for it, including even the wording, is in the 
speech itself. We place the pamphlet in this setting in order to aid the 
pupil. 

9 



10 CAUSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

of their ordinary sphere. They enjoy a privilege of somewhat 
more dignity and effect than that of idle lamentation over the 
calamities of their country. They may look into them narrow- 
ly ; they may reason upon them liberally ; and, if they should 
5 be so fortunate as to discover the true source of the mischief 
and to suggest any probable method of removing it, though 
they may displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of 
service to the cause of government. Government is deeply 
interested in everything which, even through the medium of 

10 some temporary uneasiness, may tend finally to compose the 
minds of the subject and to conciliate their affections. 

I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the 
voice of» the people. But as long as reputation, the most 
precious possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, 

J 5 the great support of the state, depend entirely upon that voice, 
it can never be considered as a thing of little consequence 
either to individuals or to government. Nations are not pri- 
marily ruled by laws; less by violence. "Whatever original 
energy may be supposed either in force or regulation, the 

20 operation of both is, in truth, merely instrumental. Nations 
are governed by the same methods and on the same principles 
by which an individual without authority is often able to gov- 
ern those who are his equals or his superiors — by a knowledge 
of their temper and by a judicious management of it : I mean 

25 when public affairs are steadily and quietly conducted ; not 
when government is nothing but a continued scuffle between 
the magistrate and the multitude, in which sometimes the one 
and sometimes the other is uppermost, in which they alter- 
nately yield and prevail in a series of contemptible victories 

3° and scandalous submissions. The temper of the people 
amongst whom he presides ought therefore to be the first study 
of a statesman. And the knowledge of this temper it is by 
no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not an inter- 
est in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn. . . . 

35 2. The Present Discontents. — Nobody, I believe, will con- 

13. What does Cassio in Othello say of reputation ? 



CAUSE OP THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 11 

sider it merely as the language of spleen or disappointment, if 
I say that there is something particularly alarming in the 
present conjuncture. There is hardly a man in or out of 
power who holds any other language. That government is at 
once dreaded and contemned ; that the laws are despoiled of 5 
all their respected and salutary terrors ; that their inaction is 
a subject of ridicule and their exertion of abhorrence ; that 
rank and office and title and all the solemn plausibilities of the 
world have lost their reverence and effect ; that our foreign 
politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy ; that 10 
our dependencies are slackened in their affection and loos- 
ened from their obedience ; that we know neither how to yield 
nor how to enforce ; that hardly anything above or below, 
abroad or at home, is sound and entire ; but that disconnection 
and confusion, in offices, in parties, in families, in Parliament, 15 
in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of any former 
time ;— these are facts universally admitted and lamented. 

This state of things is the more extraordinary, because the 
great parties which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom 
are known to be in a manner entirely dissolved. No great 20 
external calamity has visited the nation, no pestilence or 
famine. We do not labor at present under any scheme of 
taxation new or oppressive in the quantity or in the mode. 
Nor are we engaged in unsuccessful war, in which our mis- 
fortunes might easily pervert our judgment, and our minds, 25 
sore from the loss of national glory, might feel every blow of 
fortune as a crime in government. 

* Through two pages Burke gives the views of the ministry 
respecting the cause of these discontents — the wicked industry of 
libelers of the government, the intrigues of disappointed poli- 30 
ticians, and the perverse disposition of the people. Then follows 
a page in eloquent 

3. Defense of the People. — I am not one of those who think 
that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, 
frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in 35 



* We are obliged to cut down the pamphlet somewhat. When the omis- 
sion is of any length, we shall, as here, give in our own words the gist of the 
omitted pages, _ 



12 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their 
riders the presumption is at least upon a par in favor of the 
people. Experience may perhaps justify me in going further. 
When popular discontents have been very prevalent, it may 
5 well be affirmed and supported that there has been generally 
something found amiss in the constitution or in the conduct of 
government. The people have no interest in disorder. When 
they do wrong, it is their error, and not their crime. But with 
the governing part of the state it is far otherwise. They cer- 

io tainly may act ill by design as well as by mistake. ' ' Les revo- 
lutions qui arrivent dans les grands etats ne sont point un 
effet du hazard, ni du caprice des peuples. . . . Pour la 
populace, ce rtest jamais par envie d'attaquer qiCelle se soideve, 
mais par impatience de souffrir.' 1 These are the words of a 

15 great man — of a minister of state and a zealous asserter of 
monarchy. They are applied to the system of favoritism 
which was adopted by Henry the Third of France, and to the 
dreadful consequences it produced. What he says of revolu- 
tions is equally true of all great disturbances. If this pre- 

20 sumption in favor of the subjects against the trustees of power 
be not the more probable, I am sure it is the more comfortable 
speculation, because it is more easy to change an administra- 
tion than to reform a people. 

Through three or four pages Burke argues that the people can- 
25 not be said to endure no grievance because those of which they 
complain are not of the old fashion — Ship Money, Forest Laws, 
designs against Parliament. Tyranny alters its guise. Then fol- 
lows his first great topic — 

I. THE GREAT CAUSE OF THE DISCONTENTS IS THE 
SYSTEM OF THE DOUBLE CABINET RECENTLY IN- 

*~ TEODUCED. 

1. An Outline of the Double Cabinet System. — At the 

3° Kevolution, the crown, deprived, for the ends of the Kevolu- 

10. " The revolutions that come to pass in great states are not the result of 
chance nor of popular caprice. ... As for the populace, it is never from a 
passion for attack that it rebels, but from impatience of suffering" (Mor- 
ley's rendering). 

15. Sully, practically Henry IV. 's minister of finance during the greater 
part of his reign, 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 13 

tion itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to strug- 
gle against all the difficulties which pressed so new and un- 
settled a government. The court was obliged therefore to 
delegate a part of its powers to men of such interest as could 
support, and of such fidelity as would adhere to, its establish- 5 
ment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a 
concurrence in the common defense. This connection, neces- 
sary at first, continued long after convenient ; and, properly 
conducted, might indeed in all situations be a useful instru- 
ment of government. At the same time, through the inter- 10 
vention of men of popular weight and character, the people 
possessed a security for their just proportion of importance 
in the state. But as the title to the crown grew stronger by long 
possession and by the constant increase of its influence, these 
helps have of late seemed to certain persons no better than in- 15 
cumbrances. The powerful managers for government were not 
sufficiently submissive to the pleasure of the possessors of im- 
mediate and personal favor, sometimes from a confidence in 
their own strength natural and acquired, sometimes from a fear 
of offending their friends and weakening that lead in the coun- 20 
try which gave them a consideration independent of the court. 
Men acted as if the court could receive, as well as confer, an 
obligation. The influence of government, thus divided in ap- 
pearance between the court and the leaders of parties, became 
in many cases an accession rather to the popular than to the 25 
royal scale ; and some part of that influence, which would 
otherwise have been possessed as in a sort of mortmain and 
unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from 
whence it arose and circulated among the people. This method 
therefore of governing by men of great natural interest or 30 

3. There is good usage for this form of expression, and equally good for 
that seen in such a new. etc. 

3. In the reign of William and Mary, the ministry, or cabinet, as here de- 
scribed, came into existence. The mode of its appointment and the tenure 
of its office are essentially the same now as then. It is made up of the 
leaders of the party in power in the House of Commons, and holds office as 
long as it can command a majority in this House. When it fails of this, 
the sovereign sends for the chief of the opposing party and asks him to 
form a cabinet. This in its tux*n is the executive branch of the government 
till the majority deserts it. 

27. Mortmain. Possession of lands or tenements in hands that cannot 
alienate. 



14 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

great acquired consideration was viewed in a very invidious 
light by the true lovers of absolute monarchy. It is the 
nature of despotism to abhor power held by any means but its 
own momentary pleasure, and to annihilate all intermediate 
5 situations between boundless strength on its own part and 
total debility on the part of the people. 

To get rid of all this intermediate and independent impor- 
tance, and to secure to the court the unlimited and uncon- 
trolled use of its oam vast influence, under the sole direction of 

10 its own private favor, has for some years past been the great 
object of policy. If this were compassed, the influence of the 
crown must of course produce all the effects which the most 
sanguine partisans of the court could possibly desire. Gov- 
ernment might then be carried on without any concurrence 

15 on the part of the people, without any attention to the dignity 

of the greater or to the affections of the lower sorts. A new 

project was therefore devised by a certain set of intriguing 

men, totally different from the system of administration 

. which had prevailed since the accession of the House of Bruns- 

20 wick. This project, I have heard, was first conceived by 
some persons in the court of Frederick Prince of Wales. 

The earliest attempt in the execution of this design was to 
set up for minister a person, in rank indeed respectable, and 
very ample in fortune, but who, to the moment of this vast 

25 and sudden elevation, was little known or considered in the 
kingdom. To him the whole nation was to yield an immediate 
and implicit submission. But whether it was from want of 
firmness to bear up against the first opposition, or that things 
were not yet fully ripened, or that this method was not found 

30 the most eligible, that idea was soon abandoned. The instru- 
mental part of the project was a little altered to accommodate 
it to the time and to bring things more gradually and more 
surely to the one great end proposed. 

20. Who was the first of this House on the English throne ? Trace the con- 
nection between this House and that of the Stuarts. 

23. The Earl of Bute. 

27. Though etymologically suggesting two, whether may, as here, be used, 
with three things, or with more: it often is used with one only. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 15 

The first part of the reformed plan was to draw a line 
which should separate the court from the.ministry. Hitherto 
these names had been looked upon as synonymous, but, for 
the future, court and administration were to be considered as 
things totally distinct. By this operation two systems of ad- 5 
ministration were to be formed : one which should be in the 
real secret and confidence, the other merely ostensible, to per- 
form the official and executory duties of government. The 
latter were alone to be responsible ; whilst the real advisers, 
who enjoyed all the power, were effectually removed from all 10 
the danger. 

Secondly, a party under these leaders was to be formed in 
favor of the court against the ministry : this party was to 
have a large share in the emoluments of government, and to 
hold it totally separate from, and independent of, ostensible 15 
administration. 

The third point, and that on which the success of the whole 
scheme ultimately depended, was to bring Parliament to an 
acquiescence in this project. Parliament was therefore to be 
taught by degrees a total indifference to the persons, rank, 20 
influence, abilities, connections, and character of the ministers 
of the crown. By means of a discipline, on which I shall say 
more hereafter, that body was to be habituated to the most 
opposite interests and the most discordant politics. All con- 
nections and dependencies among subjects were to be entirely 25 
dissolved. As hitherto business had gone through the hands 
of leaders of Whigs or Tories — men of talents to conciliate the 
people and to engage their confidence, — now the method was to 
be altered, and the lead was to be given to men of no sort of 
consideration or credit in the country. This want of natural 30 
importance was to be their very title to delegated power. 
Members of Parliament were to be hardened into an insensibil- 
ity to pride as well as to duty. Those high and haughty senti- 
ments, which are the great support of independence, were to 
be let down gradually. Points of honor and precedence were 35 
no more to be regarded in parliamentary decorum than in a 
Turkish army. It was to be avowed, as a constitutional 



16 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

maxim, that the king might appoint one of his footmen, or 
one of your footmen, for minister ; and that he ought to be, 
and that he would be, as well followed as the first name for 
rank or wisdom in the nation. Thus Parliament was to look 
5 on as if perfectly unconcerned, while a cabal of the closet and 
back-stairs was substituted in the place of a national adminis- 
tration. 

With such a degree of acquiescence, any measure of any 
court might well be deemed thoroughly secure. The capital 

10 objects, and by much the most flattering characteristics of 
arbitrary power, would be obtained. Everything would be 
drawn from its holdings in the country to the personal favor 
and inclination of the prince. This favor would be the sole 
introduction to power, and the only tenure by which it was to 

15 be held : so that no person looking towards another, and all 
looking towards the court, it was impossible but that the mo- 
tive which solely influenced every man's hopes must come in 
time to govern every man's conduct ; till at last the servility 
became universal in spite of the dead letter of any laws or in- 

20 stitutions whatever. 

Through some nine pages Burke speaks (1) of the advantages 
which the king possessed over his predecessors in facilitating the 
introduction of the Double Cabinet System ; (2) of the plan to de- 
stroy everything not deriving its nourishment from the court — 

25 the Whig party and Mr. Pitt and its other leaders ; (3) of the 
tyranny which the Cabal favoring the new scheme of govern- 
ment claimed that gentlemen and even the king endured at the 
hands of the old ministry ; (4) of the growth of an aristocratic 
power prejudicial to the rights of the crown and the balance of 

30 the constitution, and calling for a check. 

2. The Details of the Double Cabinet System. — It must 
be remembered that since the Kevolution, until the period we 
are speaking of, the influence of the crown had been always 
employed in supporting the ministers of state and in carry- 
35 ing on the public business according to their opinions. But 
the party now in question is formed upon a very different idea. 
It is to intercept the favor, protection, and confidence of the 
crown in the passage to its ministers ; it is to come between 
them and their importance in Parliament ; it is to separate 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 17 

them from all their natural and acquired dependencies ; it is 
intended as the control, not the support, of administration. 
The machinery of this system is perplexed in its movements 
and false in its principle. It is formed on a supposition that 
the king is something external to his government ; and that 5 
he may be honored and aggrandized even by its debility and 
disgrace. The plan proceeds expressly on the idea of enfeeb- 
ling the regular executory power. It proceeds on the idea of 
weakening the state in order to strengthen the court. The 
scheme depending entirely on distrust, on disconnection, on 10 
mutability by principle, on systematic weakness in every par- 
ticular member, it is impossible that the total result should be 
substantial strength of any kind. 

As a foundation of their scheme, the Cabal have established 
a sort of Rota in the court. All sorts of parties, by this 15 
means, have been brought into administration, from whence 
few have had the good fortune to escape without disgrace, 
none at all without considerable losses. In the beginning of 
each arrangement no professions of confidence and support are 
wanting to induce the leading men to engage. But while the 20 
Ministers of the day appear in all the pomp and pride of 
power, while they have all their canvas spread out to the wind, 
and every sail filled with the fair and prosperous gale of royal 
favor, in a short time they find, they know not how, a current 
which sets directly against them, which prevents all progress, 25 
and even drives them backwards. They grow ashamed and 
mortified in a situation which, by its vicinity to power, only 
serves to remind them the more strongly of their insignificance. 
They are obliged either to execute the orders of their inferiors 
or to see themselves opposed by the natural instruments of their 30 
office. With the loss of their dignity they lose their temper. 



14. A Hebrew word. Names a junto or association of men. The initials 
of the names of the five mischievous advisers of Charles II. — Clifford, Ar- 
lington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale — compose the word. That 
fact.brought the word into prominence. 

15. Rota. A club established by J. Harrington in 1659 — originally the 
name of an ecclesiastical court at Rome. 

15. " Every statesman of the day, except Lord Temple," was lured into 
office. 



18 CAUSE OF THE PEESENT DISCONTENTS. 

In their turn they grow troublesome to that Cabal, which, 
whether it supports or opposes, equally disgraces and equally 
betrays them. It is soon found necessary to get rid of the 
heads of administration, but it is of the heads only. As there 
5 always are many rotten members belonging to the best connec- 
tions, it is not hard to persuade several to continue in office 
without their leaders. By this means the party goes out much 
thinner than it came in, and is only reduced in strength by its 
temporary possession of power. Besides, if by accident or in 

10 course of changes, that power should be recovered, the Junto 
have thrown up a retrenchment of these carcasses which may 
serve to cover themselves in a day of danger. They conclude, 
not unwisely, that such rotten members will become the first 

• objects of disgust and resentment to their ancient connections. 

15 They contrive to form in the outward administration two 
parties at the least, which, whilst they are tearing one another 
to pieces, are both competitors for the favor and protection of 
the Cabal, and by their emulation contribute to throw every- 
thing more and more into the hands of the interior managers. 

20 A minister of state will sometimes keep himself totally 
estranged from all his colleagues, will differ from them in their 
counsels, will privately traverse and publicly oppose thsir 
measures. He will, however, continue in his employment. 
Instead of suffering any mark of displeasure, he will be dis- 

25 tinguished by an unbounded profusion of court rewards and 
caresses, because he does what is expected, and all that is 
expected, from men in office. He helps to keep some form of 
administration in being, and keeps it at the same time as weak 
and divided as possible. 

30 However, we must take care not to be mistaken or to im- 
agine that such persons have any weight in their opposition. 
When, by them, administration is convinced of its insignifi- 
cancy, they are soon to be convinced of their own. They 
never are suffered to succeed in their opposition. They and 

11. Retrenchment. Intrenchment. The figure of which this word is a 
part is strong, if not elegant. Burke has been accused of lack of refined taste. 

16. One another. Still used, as here, with two things; may be used also 
with more than two. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 19 

the world .are to be satisfied that neither office, nor authority, 
nor property, nor ability, eloquence, counsel, skill, or union 
are of the least importance; but that the mere influence of the 
court, naked of all support and destitute of all management, 
is abundantly sufficient for all its own purposes. 5 

When any adverse connection is to be destroyed, the Cabal 
seldom appear in the work themselves. They find out some 
person of whom the party entertains a high opinion. Such 
a person they endeavor to delude with various pretenses. 
They teach him first to distrust and then to quarrel with his 10 
friends; among whom by the same arts they excite a similar 
diffidence of him; so that in this mutual fear and distrust he 
may suffer himself to be employed as the instrument in the 
change which is brought about. Afterwards they are sure to 
destroy him in his turn by setting up in his place some person 15 
in whom he had himself reposed the greatest confidence, and 
who serves to carry off a considerable part of his adherents. 

When such a person has broken in this manner with his con- 
nections, he is soon compelled to commit some flagrant act of 
iniquitous personal hostility against some of them (such as an 20 
attempt to strip a particular friend of his family estate), by 
which the Cabal hope to render the parties utterly irreconcil- 
able. In truth, they have so contrived matters that people 
have a greater hatred to the subordinate instruments than to 
the principal movers. „ 

As in destroying their enemies they make use of instruments 
not immediately belonging to their corps, so in advancing 
their own friends they pursue exactly the same method. To 
promote any of them to considerable rank or emolument they 
commonly take care that the recommendation shall pass 35 
through the hands of the ostensible ministry: such a recom- 
mendation might, however, appear to the world as some proof 
of the credit of ministers and some means of increasing their 



1. Note that " neither " and " nor " are here used with many terms. This 
is still good usage. 

8. Alluding to the Duke of Grafton, one of Lord Rockingham's cabinet. 
Burke was Lord R.'s private secretary then. 

15. This was done with the Duke of Grafton. 



20 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

strength. To prevent this, the persons so advanced are di- 
rected in all companies industriously to declare that they are 
under no obligations whatsoever to administration, that they 
have received their office from another quarter, that they are 
5 totally free and independent. 

When the faction has any job of lucre to obtain or of ven- 
geance to perpetrate, their way is to select for the execution 
those very persons to whose habits, friendships, principles, 
and declarations such proceedings are publicly known to be 

iothe most adverse; at once to render the instruments the more 
odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to prevent the 
people from ever reposing a confidence in any appearance of 
private friendship or public principle. 

If the administration seem now and then, from remissness, 

*5 or from fear of making themselves disagreeable, to suffer any 
popular excesses to go unpunished, the Cabal immediately sets 
up some creature of theirs to raise a clamor against the min- 
isters as having shamefully betrayed the dignity of govern- 
ment. Then they compel the ministry to become active in 

20 conferring rewards and honors on the persons w f ho have been 
the instruments of their disgrace; and, after having first vili- 
fied them with the higher orders for suffering the laws to 
sleep over the licentiousness of the populace, they drive them 
(in order to make amends for their former inactivity) to some 

25 act of atrocious violence, which renders them completely 
abhorred by the people. They who remember the riots which 
attended the Middlesex election, the opening of the present 
Parliament, and the transactions relative to Saint George's 
Fields, will not be at a loss for an application of these 

30 remarks. 

That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of 
its institution, its members are scarcely ever to aim at the 
high and responsible offices of the state. They are distributed 
with art and judgment through all the secondary, but effi- 

35 cient, departments of office, and through the households of all 

17. Of theirs, of mine, etc. An idiom still in common use. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 21 

the branches of the royal family ; so as on one hand to oc- 
cupy all the avenues to the throne, and on the other to for- 
ward or frustrate the execution of any measure, according to 
their own interests. For with the credit and support which 
they are known to have, though for the greater part in places 5 
which are only a genteel excuse for salary, they possess all the 
influence of the highest posts ; and they dictate publicly in 
almost everything, even with a parade of superiority. When- 
ever they dissent (as it often happens) from their nominal 
leaders, the trained part of the senate, instinctively in the 10 
secret, is sure to follow them, provided the leaders, sensible of 
their situation, do not of themselves recede in time from their 
most declared opinions. This latter is generally the case. It 
will not be conceivable to any one who has not seen it, w r hat 
pleasure is taken by the Cabal in rendering these heads of 1 5 
office thoroughly contemptible and ridiculous. And, when 
they are become so, they have then the best chance for being 
well supported. 

The members of the court faction are fully indemnified for 
not holding places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not 20 
only by the lead in all affairs but also by the perfect security 
in which they enjoy less conspicuous, but very advantageous, 
situations. Their places are, in express legal tenure or in 
effect, all of them for life. Whilst the first and most respect- 
able persons in the kingdom are tossed about like tennis balls, 25 
the sport of a blind and insolent caprice, no minister dares 
even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If 
an attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he 
flies to sanctuary and pretends to the most inviolable of all 
promises. No conveniency of public arrangement is available 30 
to remove any one of them from the specific situation he 
holds, and the slightest attempt upon one of them, by the 
most powerful minister, is a certain preliminary to his own 
destruction. 

Conscious of their independence, they bear themselves with 35 



24. All of theiii. An approved idiom. 



22 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

a lofty air to the exterior ministers. Like Janissaries, they 
derive a kind of freedom from the very condition of their 
servitude. They may act just as they please, provided they 
are true to the great ruling principle of their institution. It 
5 is, therefore, not at all wonderful that people should be so 
desirous of adding themselves to that body, in which they 
may possess and reconcile satisfactions the most alluring and 
seemingly the most contradictor}' ; enjoying at once all the 
spirited pleasure of independence and all the gross lucre and 

10 and fat emoluments of servitude. 

Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the constitution, 
laws, and policy of this new court corporation. The name by 
which they choose to distinguish themselves is that of king's 
men, or the king's friends, by an invidious exclusion of the 

15 rest of his majesty's most loyal and affectionate subjects. 
The whole system, comprehending the exterior and interior 
administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language 
of the court, Double Cabinet, — in Trench or English, as you 
choose to pronounce it. 

20 Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain or the in- 
vention of a malicious heart or a real faction in the country 
must be judged by the appearances which things have worn for 
eight years past. Thus far I am certain, that there is not a 
single public man, in or out of office, who has not at some 

25 time or other borne testimony to the truth of what I have now 
related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in 
their assertions and louder and more indecent in their com- 
plaints than those who compose all the exterior part of the 
present administration ; in whose time that faction has ar- 

30 rived at such a height of power, and of boldness in the use of 
it, as may in the end perhaps bring about its total destruction. 

Through two pages Burke speaks ( 1) of the administration of 
Lord Rockingham, and (2) of the Earl of Bute, the supposed head 
of the Cabal, 



1. A privileged and powerful class of soldiers in the Turkish army, formed 
of converts from Christianity or of their sons. They set up and pulled down 
sultans. The order abolished in 1826. 



CAUSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 23 

3. The Double Cabinet System at Variance with the 
Plan of the Legislature — Unconstitutional. — A plan of 
favoritism for our executory government is essentially at 
variance with the plan of our legislature. One great end un- 
doubtedly of a mixed government like ours, composed of 5 
monarchy and of controls, on the part of the higher people 
and the lower, is, that the prince shall not be able to vio- 
late the laws. This is useful indeed and fundamental. But 
this, even at first view, is no more than a negative advan- 
tage, an armor merely defensive. It is therefore next in io 
order and equal in importance that the discretionary powers 
which are necessarily vested in the monarch, whether for the 
execution of the laws or for the nomination to magistracy and 
office or for conducting the affairs of peace and war or for 
ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public prin- 1 5 
ciples and national grounds, and not on the likings or preju- 
dices, the intrigues or policies, of a court. This, I said, is 
equal in importance to the securing a government according 
to law. The laws reach but a very little way. Constitute 
government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it 20 
must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left 
at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state. 
Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them. 
Without them, your commonwealth is no better than a scheme 
upon paper, and not a living, active, effective constitution. It 25 
is possible that, through negligence or ignorance or design 
artfully conducted, ministers may suffer one part of govern- 
ment to languish, another to be perverted from its purposes, 
and every valuable interest of the country to fall into ruin 
and decay, without possibility of fixing any single act on 30 
which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded. The 
due arrangement of men in the active part of the state, far 
from being foreign to the purposes of a wise government, 
ought to be among its very first and clearest objects. When, 
therefore, the abettors of the new system tell us that between 35 

18. This construction — a participle modified by the and having an object- 
has been criticised. But usage approves it. 



24 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

them and their opposers there is nothing but a struggle for 

i power and that therefore we are noways concerned in it, we 
must tell those who have the impudence to insult us in this 
manner that, of all things, we ought to be the most concerned 
5 who and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of 
everything that is dear to us. Nothing can render this a 
point of indifference to the nation but what must either render 
us totally desperate or soothe us into the security of idiots. 
"We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy 

10 to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malig- 
nity truly diabolical to believe all the world to be equally 
wicked and corrupt. Men are in public life as in private — 
some good, some evil. The elevation of the one and the de- 
pression of the other are the first objects of all true policy. 

15 But that form of government which, neither in its direct in- 
stitutions nor in their immediate tendency, has contrived to 
throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has 
left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreeably to 
the uncontrolled pleasure of any one man, however excellent 

20 or virtuous, is a plan of policy defective not only in that 
member but consequentially erroneous in every part of it. 

In arbitrary governments, the constitution of the ministry 
follows the constitution of the legislature. Both the law 
and the magistrate are the creatures of will. It must be so. 

25 Nothing, indeed, will appear more certain, on any tolerable 
consideration of this matter, than that every sort of govern- 
ment ought to have its administration correspondent to its 
legislature. If it should be otherwise, things must fall into 
a hideous disorder. The people of a free commonwealth, who 

30 have taken such care that their laws should be the result of 
general consent, cannot be so senseless as to suffer their execu- 
tory system to be composed of persons on whom they have 
no dependence, and whom no proofs of the public love and 

13. The one still refers to the more remote, the other to the nearer. 

28. In our general government and in our state governments, the executive 
branch is not necessarily in accord with the legislative. Things here have 
not yet fallen into "hideous disorder." For a defense of the English sys- 
tem, see Bagehot, English Constitution, 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 25 

confidence have recommended to those powers, upon the use 
of which the very being of the state depends. 

The popular election of magistrates, and popular disposition 
of rewards and honors, is one of the first advantages of a free 
state. Without it or something equivalent to it, perhaps the 5 
people cannot long enjoy the substance of freedom, certainly 
none of the vivifying energy of good government. The frame 
of our commonwealth did not admit of such an actual elec- 
tion : but it provided as well, and (while the spirit of the con- 
stitution is preserved) better, for all the effects of it, than by 10 
the method of suffrage in any democratic state whatsoever. 
It had always, until of late, been held the first duty of Parlia- 
ment to refuse to support government, until power was in the 
hands of persons who were acceptable to the people, or while 
factions predominated in the court in which the nation had 15 
no confidence. Thus all the good effects of popular election 
were supposed to be secured to us, without the mischiefs 
attending on perpetual intrigue, and a distinct canvass for 
every particular office throughout the body of the people. 
This was the most noble and refined part of our constitution. 20 
The people, by their representatives and grandees, were in- 
trusted with a deliberative power in making laws ; the king 
with the control of his negative. The king was intrusted 
with the deliberative choice and the election to office ; the 
people had the negative in a parliamentary refusal to support. 25 
Formerly this power of control was what kept ministers in 
awe of parliaments and parliaments in reverence with the 
people. If the use of this power of control on the system and 
persons of administration is gone, everything is lost, Parlia- 
ment and all. "We may assure ourselves that if Parliament 30 
will tamely see evil men take possession of all the strongholds 
of their country, and allow them time and means to fortify 
themselves, under a pretense of giving them a fair trial, and 
upon a hope of discovering whether they will not be reformed 
by power and whether their measures will not be better than 35 

23. No English sovereign since Queen Anne has exercised the veto power, 
and she not after 1707. 



26 CAUSE QF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

their morals, such a Parliament will give countenance to their 
measures also, whatever that Parliament may pretend, and 
whatever those measures may be. 
Every good political institution must have a preventive 
5 operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have & natural 
tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to 
trust for the safety of the state to subsequent punishment 
alone : punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain, 
and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance 

10 to fall rather on the injured than the criminal. 

Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the 
state, they ought by their conduct to have obtained such a 
degree of estimation in their country as may be some sort of 
pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse 

15 those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper use of power 
that a man has shown, by the general tenor of his actions, 
that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his 
fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects of his 
life ; and that he has owed none of the gradations of his 

20 power or fortune to a settled contempt or occasional forfeiture 
of their esteem. 

That man who before he comes into power has no friends, 
or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends, or 
who losing it has no friends to sympathize with him ; he who 

25 has no sway among any part of the landed or commercial in- 

. terest, but whose whole importance has begun with his office 

and is sure to end with it, is a person who ought never to be 

suffered by a controlling Parliament to continue in any of those 

situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public 

30 affairs, because such a man has no connection with the inter- 
est of the people. 

Those knots or cabals of men who have got together, 
avowedly without any public principle, in order to sell their 
conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore univer- 

35 sally odious, ought never to be suffered to domineer in the 

32. Got. Still used to convey an idea of motion. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 27 

state, because they have no connection ivith the sentiments 
and opinions of the people. 

These are considerations which in my opinion enforce the 
necessity of having some better reason, In a free country and 
a free Parliament, for supporting the ministers of the crown, 5 
than that short one, that the king has thought proper* to 
appoint them. There is something very courtly in this. But 
it is a principle pregnant with all sorts of mischief, in a con- 
stitution like ours, to turn the views of active men from the 
country to the court. Whatever be the road to power, that 10 
is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country 
be of no use as a means of power or consideration, the quali- 
ties which usually procure that opinion will be no longer culti- 
vated. And whether it will be right, in a state so popular 
in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular 15 
motives and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue in the • 
minds of kings and ministers and public men, must be sub- 
mitted to the judgment and good sense of the people of Eng- 
land. 

Through three pages Burke states and answers the objection, 20 
made by cunning men, that the people are divided into factions, 
and that if the king makes up his cabinet, or ministry, out of 
any one of these, he will disgust the rest ; if he chooses from all, 
he will disgust each. Then follows his second great topic — 

II. THE EFFECTS, OR CONSEQUENCES, OF THE DOUBLE 
CABINET SYSTEM. 

There is, in my opinion, a peculiar venom and malignity in 25 
this political distemper beyond any that I have heard or read 
of. In former times the projectors of arbitrary government 
attacked only the liberties of their country, a design surely 
mischievous enough to have satisfied a mind of the most unruly 
ambition. But a system unfavorable to freedom may be so 30 
formed as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the state ; and 
men may find in the pride and splendor of that prosperity 
some sort of consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. 
Indeed the increase of the power of the state has often been 
urged by artful men as a pretext for some abridgment of the 35 



28 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

public liberty. But the scheme of the junto under considera- 
tion not only strikes a palsy into every nerve of our free con- 
stitution but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the 
■whole executive power, rendering government in all its grand 
5 operations languid, uncertain, ineffective, making ministers 
fearful of attempting, and incapable of executing, any useful 
plan of domestic arrangement or of foreign politics. It tends 
to produce neither the security of a free government nor the 
energy of a monarchy that is absolute. Accordingly, the crown 

io has dwindled away in proportion to the unnatural and turgid 
growth of this excrescence on the court. 

1. Effects upon our Foreign Affairs, or Relations. — The 
interior ministry are sensible that war is a situation which sets 
in its full light the value of the hearts of a people ; and they 

15 well know that the beginning of the importance of the people 
must be the end of theirs. For this reason they discover upon 
all occasions the utmost fear of everything which by possibility 
may lead to such an event. I do not mean that they manifest 
any of that pious fear which is backward to commit the safety 

20 of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such a fear, 
being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is regulated, 
by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable boldness which 
keeps danger at a distance by seeming to despise it. Their fear 
betrays to the first glance of the eye its true cause and its real 

25 object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their 
character, have not scrupled to violate the most solemn treaties, 
and, in defiance of them, to make conquests in the midst "of a 
general peace and in the heart of Europe. Such was the con- 
quest of Corsica by the professed enemies of the freedom of 

3 o mankind, in defiance of those who were formerly its professed 
defenders. We have had just claims upon the same powers, 
rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to 
us, as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards 
France and Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such 



29 A word from England would have given Corsica her freedom. But in- 
stead, George III. in 1762 forbade his subjects to aid the Corsican rebels 
against Genoa. In 1768 Genoa ceded the island to France. 



CA.USE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 29 

I call the ransom of Manilla, and the demand on France for 
the East India prisoners. But these powers put a just con- 
fidence in their resource of the Double Cabinet. These de- 
mands (one of them at least) are hastening fast towards an 
acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her cob- 5 
webs over all our spirited remonstrances. Some of the most 
valuable branches of our trade are also on the point of perish- 
ing from the same cause. I do not mean those branches which 
bear without the hand of the vine-dresser ; I mean those which 
the policy of treaties had formerly secured to us ; I mean to 10 
mark and distinguish the trade of Portugal, the loss of which 
and the power of the Cabal have one and the same era. . 

If, by any chance, the ministers who stand before the curtain 
possess or affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. 
Foreign courts and ministers, who were among the first to 15 
discover and to profit by this invention of the Double Cabinet, 
attended very little to their remonstrances. They know that 
those shadows of ministers have nothing to do in the ultimate 
disposal of things. Jealousies and animosities are sedulously 
nourished in the outward administration and have been even 20 
considered as a causa sine qua non in its constitution : thence 
foreign courts have a certainty that nothing can be done by 
common counsel in this nation. If one of those ministers offi- 
cially takes up a business with spirit, it serves only the better 
to signalize the meanness of the rest and the discord of them 25 
all. His colleagues in office are in haste to shake him off and 
to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this nature was 
that astonishing transaction in which Lord Eochford, our 
ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon 
Corsica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shel- 30 
burne. This remonstrance the French minister treated with 
the contempt that was natural ; as he was assured, from the 
ambassador of his court to ours, that these orders of Lord 
Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to 

1. Manilla, lat. 14° 36' N. and long. 120° 52' E., the capital of the Philippine 
Islands, was taken, 1762, by Gen. Draper and Admiral Cornish, and the 
people released on promising a million sterling. 

2. The garrison of Pondicherry, taken by Clive. 



30 CAUSE OF THE PKESENT DISCONTENTS. 

have said British) administration. Lord Eochford, a man of 
spirit, could not endure this situation. The consequences 
were, however, curious. He returns from Paris and comes 
home full of anger. Lord Shelburne, who gave the orders, 
5 is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Eochford, who obeyed 
these orders, receives them. He goes, however, into another 
department of the same office that he might not be obliged 
officially to acquiesce, in one situation, under what he had 
officially remonstrated against, in another. At Paris, the 

10 Duke of Choiseul considered this office arrangement as a com- 
pliment to him : here it was spoken of as an attention to the 
delicacy of Lord Eochford. But, whether the compliment 
was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this 
transaction the condition of our court lay exposed in all its 

15 nakedness. Our office correspondence has lost all pretense to 
authenticity ; British policy is brought into derision in those 
nations that a while ago trembled at the power of our arms, 
whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, firmness, 
and candor which shone in all our negotiations. I represent 

20 this matter exactly in the light in which it has been universally 
received. 

2. Effects upon our Colonies. — Such has been the aspect of 
our foreign politics under the influence of a double cabinet. 
"With such an arrangement at court, it is impossible it should 

35 have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme 
should have a better effect upon the government of our depend- 
encies, the first, the dearest, and most delicate objects of the 
interior policy of this empire. The colonies know that ad- 
ministration is separated from the court, divided within itself, 

30 and detested by the nation. The double cabinet has, in both 
the parts of it, shown the most malignant dispositions towards 
them, without being able to do them the smallest mischief. 

They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, 
either of lenity or rigor, can be pursued with uniformity and 

35 perseverance. Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from 

10. Consider. May still be used for deem, regard^ as here. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 31 

Great Britain, where they have neither dependence on friend- . 
ship nor apprehension from enmity. They look to themselves 
and their own arrangements. They grow every day into 
alienation from this country ; and, whilst they are becoming 
disconnected with our government, we have not the consola- 5 
tion to find that they are even friendly in their new inde- 
pendence. Nothing can equal the futility, the weakness, the 
rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction in the 
management of our affairs in that part of the world. A vol- 
ume might be written on this melancholy subject, but it were 10 
better to leave it entirely to the reflections of the reader him- 
self than not to treat it in the extent it deserves. 

3. Effects upon our Domestic Economy, or the Temper of 
the People. — In what manner our domestic economy is af- 
fected by this system, it is needless to explain. It is the per- 15 
petual subject of their own complaints. 

The. court party resolve the whole into faction. Having 
said something before upon this subject, I shall only observe 
here that, when they give this account of the prevalence of 
faction, they present no very favorable aspect of the confi- 20 
dence of the people in their own government. They may be 
assured that, however they amuse themselves with a variety 
of projects for substituting .something else in the place of that 
great and only foundation of government, the confidence of 
the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. 25 
When men imagine that their food is only a cover for poison, 
and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves it, it 
is not the name of the roast beef of Old England that will per- 
suade them to sit down to the table that is spread for them. 
When the people conceive that laws and tribunals and even 30 
popular assemblies are perverted from the ends of their insti- 
tution, they find in those names of degenerated establishments 
only new motives to discontent. Those bodies which, when 
full of life and beauty, lay in their arms and were their joy 
and comfort, when dead and putrid become but the more 35 
loathsome from remembrance of former endearments. A sul- 
len gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits : the nation loses 



32 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

•its relish for peace and prosperity, as it did in that season of 
fullness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the 
First. A species of men to whom a state of order would be- 
come a sentence of obscurity are nourished into a dangerous 
5 magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances ; and it is no 
wonder that, by a sort of sinister piety, they cherish, in their 
turn, the disorders which are the parents of all their conse- 
quence. Superficial observers consider such persons as the 
cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing 

io more than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted 
scene with sorrow and indignation. Their hands are tied be- 
hind them. They are despoiled of all the power which might 
enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the 
rights of the people. They stand in a most distressing alter- 

15 native. But in the election among evils they hope better 
things from temporary confusion than from established servi- 
tude. In the mean time, the voice of law is not to be heard. 
Fierce licentiousness begets violent restraints. The military 
arm is the sole reliance ; and then, call your constitution what 

20 you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like 
every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, 
perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of 
this scheme of government will not trust solely to the military 
power, because they are cunning men. Their restless and 

25 crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of 
expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to 
raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy 
another ; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness 
of the populace and justly increases their discontent. Men 

30 become pensioners of state on account of their abilities in the 
array of riot and the discipline of confusion. Government is 
put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the 
severity of the laws that very licentiousness which the laws 
had been before violated to repress. Everything partakes of 

35 the original disorder. Anarchy predominates without free- 

3. With whom the civil war began in 1642, and who lost his head in 1649. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 33 

dom, and servitude without submission or subordination. 
These are the consequences, inevitable to our public peace, 
from the scheme of rendering the executory government at 
once odious and feeble ; of freeing administration from the 
constitutional and salutary control of Parliament, and invent- 5 
ing for it a new control, unknown to the constitution, an 
interior cabinet, which brings the whole body of government 
into confusion and contempt. 

4. Effects upon the King. — After having stated, as shortly 
as I am able, the effects of this system on our foreign affairs, 10 
on the policy of our government with regard to our depend- 
encies, and on the interior economy of the commonwealth, 
there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something 
of the grand principle which first recommended this system at 
court. The pretense was to prevent the king from, being en- 15 
slaved by a faction and made a prisoner in his closet. This 
scheme might have been expected to answer at least its own 
end, and to indemnify the king, in his personal capacity, for 
all the confusion into which it has thrown his government. 
But has it in reality answered this purpose ? I am sure, if it 20 
had, every affectionate subject would have one motive for en- 
during with patience all the evils which attend it. 

In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be 
amiss to consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the 
king and not of the crown, the interests of which we have 25 
already touched. Independent of that greatness which a king 
possesses merely by being a representative of the national dig- 
nity, the things in which he may have an individual interest 
seem to be these : wealth accumulated ; wealth spent in mag- 
nificence, pleasure, or beneficence ; personal respect and atten- 30 
tion ; and, above all, private ease and repose of mind. These 
compose the inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether 
they regard a prince or a subject ; their enjoyments differing 
only in the scale upon which they are formed. 

(a) Beggared his Exchequer. — Suppose then we were to 35 

•9. Shortly. Still used for briefly in England, but not on this side of the 
water. 



34 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

ask whether the king has been richer than his predecessors in& 
accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan of 
favoritism ? I believe it will be found that the picture of 
royal indigence which our court has presented until this year 
5 has been truly humiliating. ISTor has it been relieved from 
this unseemly distress but by means which have hazarded the 
affection of the people and shaken their confidence in Parlia- 
ment. If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnifi- 
cence and splendor, this distress would have been accounted 

ro for and in some measure justified. Nothing would be more 
unworthy of this nation than with a mean and mechanical 
rule to mete out the splendor of the crown. Indeed I have 
found very fe w persons disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. 
But the generality of people, it must be confessed, do feel a 

1 5 good deal mortified when they compare the wants of the 
court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of this 
distress in any part of the apparatus of royal magnificence. 
In all this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, 
attended with all the consequences of profusion. Nothing ex- 

sopended, nothing saved. Their wonder is increased by their 
knowledge that, besides the revenue settled on his majesty's 
civil list to the amount of £800,000 a year, he has a farther 
aid, from a large pension list, near £90,000 a year, in Ireland ; 
from the produce of the Duchy of Lancaster (which we are told 

25 has been greatly improved) ; from the revenue of the Duchy 
of Cornwall ; from the American quit-rents ; from the four 
and a half per cent duty in the Leeward Islands, this last 
worth to be sure considerably more than £40,000 a year. The 
whole is certainly not much short of a million annually. 

30 (6) Tarnished his Splendor. — These are revenues within 
the knowledge and cognizance of our national councils. We 
have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his 
majesty's German dominions and the bishopric of Osnaburg. 

13. We may use this form or say such an ungenerous. Usage sanctions 
both forms. 

15. We may say a good deal, a good many, or a great deal, a great many. 

33. Bishopric, etc. "Bestowed by the king upon his son, a new-born 
child, before he was christened." 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 35 

This is unquestionably true. But that which is not within 
the province of Parliament is yet within the sphere of every 
man's own reflection. If a foreign prince resided amongst us, 
the state of his revenues could not fail of becoming the subject 
of our speculation. Filled with an anxious concern for what- 5 
ever regards the welfare of our sovereign, it is impossible, in 
considering the miserable circumstances into which he has 
been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed 
over. There is an opinion universal that these revenues pro- 
duce something not inconsiderable, clear of all charges and 10 
establishments. This produce the people do not believe to be 
hoarded nor perceive to be spent. It is accounted for in the 
only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn away for 
the support of that court faction, which, whilst it distresses 
the nation, impoverishes the prince in every one of his re- 15 
sources. I once more caution the reader that I do not urge 
this consideration concerning the foreign revenue as if I sup- 
posed we had a direct right to examine into the expenditure 
of any part of it, but solely for the purpose of showing how 
little this system of favoritism has been advantageous to the 20 
monarch himself ; which, without magnificence, has sunk him 
into a state of unnatural poverty, at the same time that he 
possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues both 
in this country and in other parts of his dominions. 

(c) Sunk his Dignity. — Has this system provided better 25 
for the treatment becoming his high and sacred character, and 
secured the king from those disgusts attached to the necessity 
of employing men who are not personally agreeable ? This is 
a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent, 
but the pretense of securing against such causes of uneasiness 30 
is the corner-stone of the court party. It has however so 
happened that, if I were to fix upon any one point in w r hich 
this system has been more particularly and shamefully blam- 
able, the effects which it has produced would justify me in 
choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal 35 
dignity of the sovereign and to expose him to a thousand 
contradictions and mortifications. It is but too evident in 



36 CAtfSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

what manner these projectors of royal greatness have ful- 
filled all their magnificent promises. Without recapitulating 
all the circumstances of the reign, every one of which is more 
or less a melancholy proof of the truth of what I have ad- 
5 vanced, let us consider the language of the court but a few 
years ago concerning most of the persons now in the external 
Administration ; let me ask whether any enemy to the per- 
sonal feelings of the sovereign could possibly contrive a keener 
instrument of mortification and degradation of all dignity 

ro than almost every part and member of the present arrange- 
ment ? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any com- 
pliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort 
from any prince a greater contradiction to all his own declared 
affections and dislikes than that which is now adopted in direct 

15 opposition to everything the people approve and desire. 

(d) Galled his Feelings. — An opinion prevails that great- 
ness has been more than once advised to submit to certain 
condescensions towards individuals which have been denied 
to the entreaties of a nation. For the meanest and most de- 

20 pendent instrument of this system knows that there are hours 
when its existence may depend upon his adherence to it, and 
he takes his advantage accordingly. Indeed it is a law of 
nature that whoever is necessary to what we have made our 
object, is sure, in some way or in some time or other, to be- 

25 come our master. All this however is submitted to in order 
to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concurrence with 
the opinion of the people. For it seems to be laid down as a 
maxim that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasi- 
ness to his subjects ; that all who are pleasing to them are to 

30 be of course disagreeable to him ; that, as soon as the persons 
who are odious at court are known to be odious to the 
people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of showering 
down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors. None 
are considered as well-wishers to the crown but those who 

33. None. May be used in the singular, or, as here, in the plural. 



CAUSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 3? 

advised to some unpopular course of action ; none capable of 
serving it but those who are obliged to call at every instant 
upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are 
supposed to be fit priests in the temple of government but the 
persons who are compelled to fly into it for sanctuary. Such 5 
is the effect of this refined project ; such is ever the result of 
all the contrivances which are used to free men from the 
servitude of their reason and from the necessity of ordering 
their affairs according to their evident interests. These con- 
trivances oblige them to run into a real and ruinous servitude 10 
in order to avoid a supposed restraint that might be attended 
with advantage. 

(e) Disturbed his Peace. — If therefore this system has so 
ill answered its own grand pretense of saving the king from 
the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to him, has it 15 
given more peace and tranquillity to his majesty's private 
hours ? No, most certainly. The father of his people cannot 
possibly enjoy repose while his family is in such a state of dis- 
traction. Then what has the crown or the king profited by 
all this fine- wrought scheme ? Is he more rich, or more splen- 20 
did, or more powerful, or more at his ease, by so many labors 
and contrivances ? Have they not beggared his exchequer, 
tarnished the splendor of his court, sunk his dignity, galled 
his feelings, discomposed the whole order and happiness of his 
private life ? 25 

It will be very hard, I believe, to state in what respect the 
king has profited by that faction which presumptuously choose 
to call themselves his friends. 

If particular men had grown into an attachment by the dis- 
tinguished honor of the society of their sovereign, and, by 30 
being the partakers of his amusements, came sometimes to 
prefer, the gratification of his personal inclinations to the sup- 
port of his high character, the thing would be very natural, 
and it would be excusable enough. But the pleasant part of 
the story is that these king's friends have no more ground 35 
for usurping such a title than a resident freeholder in Cumber- 



38 CAtfSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

land or in Cornwall. They are only known to their sover- 
eign by kissing his hand for the offices, pensions, and grants 
into which they have deceived his benignity. May no storm 
ever come which will put the firmness of their attachment to 
5 the proof, and which, in the midst of confusions and terrors 
and sufferings, may demonstrate the eternal difference between 
a true and severe friend to the monarchy and a slippery syco- 
phant of the court. 
5. Effects upon Parliament. — So far I have considered the 

io effect of the court system chiefly as it operates upon the 

executive government, on the temper of the people, and on 

the happiness of the sovereign. It remains that we should 

consider, with a little attention, its operation upon Parliament. 

Parliament was indeed the great object of all these politics, 

15 the end at which they aimed, as well as the instrument by 
which they were to operate. But, before Parliament could be 
made subservient to a system by which it was to be degraded 
from the dignity of a national council into a mere member of 
the court, it must be greatly changed from its original char- 

20 acter. 

Nature and Character of the House of Commons. — In 
speaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the House of 
Commons. I hope I shall be indulged in a few observations 
on the nature and character of that assembly, not with regard 

25 to its legal form and power but to its spirit and to the pur- 
poses it is meant to answer in the constitution. 

The House of Commons was supposed originally to be no 
part of the standing government of this country. It was 
considered as a control issuing immediately from the people, 

30 and speedily to be resolved into the mass from whence it arose. 
In this respect it was in the higher part of government what 
juries are in the lower. The capactty of a magistrate being 
transitory and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity 
it was hoped would of course preponderate in all discussions, 

35 not only between the people and the standing authority of the 

8. Sycophant. Etymological ly, a fig-blabber, or informer; then a 
flatterer. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 39 

crown but between the people and the fleeting authority of 
the House of Commons itself. It was hoped that, being of a 
middle nature between subject and government, they would 
feel with a more tender and a nearer interest everything that 
concerned the people than the other remoter and more per- 5 
manent parts of legislature. 

Whatever alterations time and the necessary accommoda- 
tion of business may have introduced, this character can never 
be sustained, unless the House of Commons shall be made to 
bear some stamp of the actual disposition of the people at 10 
large. It would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more 
natural and tolerable that the House of Commons should be 
infected with every epidemical frenzy of the people, as this 
would indicate some consanguinity, some sympathy of nature 
with their constituents, than that they should in all cases be 15 
wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people 
out of doors. By this want of sympathy they would cease to 
be a House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the 
power of tliat House from the people which makes it in a dis- 
tinct sense their representative. The king is the representa- 20 
tive of the people, so are the lords, so are the judges. They 
all are trustees for the people, as well as the commons, because 
no power is given for the sole sake of the holder ; and, although 
government certainly is an institution of divine authority, yet 
its forms and the persons who administer it all originate from 25 
the people. 

A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical 
distinction of a popular representative. This belongs equally 
to all parts of government and in all forms. The virtue, 
spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consist in its being 30 
the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not 
instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has 
been taught by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. It 
was designed as a control for the people. Other institutions 
have been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses ; 35 
and they are, I apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If 
not, they ought to be made so. The House of Commons, as it 



40 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

was never intended for the support of peace and subordination, 
is miserably appointed for that service, having no stronger 
weapon than its mace and no better officer than its sergeant- 
at-arms which it can command of its own proper authority. 
5 A vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magis- 
tracy, an anxious care of public money, an openness, approach- 
ing towards facility, to public complaint, — these seem to be 
the true characteristics of a House of Commons. But an 
addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation ; a 

10 House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is 
plunged in despair ; in the utmost harmony with ministers, 
whom the people regard with the utmost abhorrence ; who 
vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for 
impeachments ; who are eager to grant, when the general 

15 voice demands account ; who, in all disputes between the 
people and administration, presume against the people ; who 
punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the pro- 
vocations to them ; — this is an unnatural, a monstrous state 
of things in this constitution. Such an assembly may be a 

20 great, wise, awful senate, but it is not, to any popular purpose, 
a House of Commons. This change from an immediate state 
of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from 
original power is the way in which all the popular magistracies 
in the world have been perverted from their purposes. It is 

25 indeed their greatest and sometimes their incurable corrup- 
tion. For there is a material distinction between that corrup- 
tion by which particular points are carried against reason (this 
is a thing which cannot be prevented by human wisdom and 
is of less consequence) and the corruption of the principle itself. 

30 For then the evil is not accidental but settled. The distemper 
becomes the natural habit. 

For my part, I shall be compelled to conclude the principle 
of Parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends 
entirely defeated, when I see two symptoms : first, a rule of 

35 indiscriminate support to all ministers, because this destroys 
the very end of Parliament as a control and is a general pre- 
vious sanction to misgovernment ; and secondly, the setting 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 41 

up any claims adverse to the right of free election, for this 
tends to subvert the legal authority by which the House of 
Commons sits. 

I know that, since the Kevolution, along with many danger- 
ous many useful powers of government have been weakened. 5 
It is absolutely necessary to have frequent recourse to the 
legislature. Parliaments must therefore sit every year and 
for great part of the year. The dreadful disorders of frequent 
elections have also necessitated a septennial instead of a tri- 
ennial duration. These circumstances, I mean the constant 10 
habit of authority and the unfrequency of elections, have 
tended very much to draw the House of Commons towards the 
character of a standing senate. It is a disorder which has 
arisen from the cure of greater disorders ; it has arisen from 
the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a monarchi- 15 
cal government with external strength and with internal 
tranquillity. 

It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves entirely from 
this great inconvenience ; but I would not increase an evil 
because I was not able to remove it ; and because it was not 20 
in my power to keep the House of Commons religiously true to 
its first principles, I would not argue for carrying it to a total 
oblivion of them. This has been the great scheme of power in 
our time. They who will riot conform their conduct to the 
public good and cannot support it by the prerogative of the 25 
crown have adopted a new plan. They have totally aban- 
doned the shattered and old-fashioned fortress of prerogative, 
and made a lodgment in the stronghold of Parliament itself. 
If they have any evil design to which there is no ordinary legal 
power commensurate, they bring it into Parliament. In Par- 30 
liament the whole is executed from the beginning to the end. 
In Parliament the power of obtaining their object is absolute, 
and the safety in the proceeding perfect — no rules to confine, 
no after reckonings to terrify. Parliament cannot with any 
great propriety punish others for things in which they them- 35 

26. They. The Cabal— the interior cabinet. 

27, Prerogative. The power claimed by the king. 



42 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

selves have been accomplices. Thus the control of Parliament 
upon the executory power is lost, because Parliament is made 
to partake in every considerable act of government. Impeach- 
ment, that great guardian of the purity of the constitution, 
5 is in danger of being lost even to the idea of it. 

By this plan several important ends are answered to the 
Cabal. If the authority of Parliament supports itself, the 
credit of every act of government which they contrive is saved ; 
but, if the act be so very odious that the whole strength of 

10 Parliament is insufficient to recommend it, then Parliament is 
itself discredited ; and this discredit increases more and more 
that indifference to the constitution which it is the constant 
aim of its enemies, by their abuse of Parliamentary powers, to 
render general among the people. Whenever Parliament is 

15 persuaded to assume the offices of executive government, it 
will lose all the confidence, love, and veneration which it has 
ever enjoyed whilst it was supposed the corrective and control 
of the acting powers of the state. This would be the event, 
though its conduct in such a perversion of its functions should 

20 be tolerably just and moderate ; but, if it should be iniquitous, 
violent, full of passion, and full of faction, it would be consid- 
ered as the most intolerable of all the modes of tyranny. 

For a considerable time this separation of the representatives 
from their constituents went on with a silent progress ; and, 

25 had those who conducted the plan for their total separation 
been persons of temper and abilities any way equal to the mag- 
nitude of their design, the success would have been infallible : 
but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all its naked- 
ness, the nation is alarmed at it, and the event may not be 

30 pleasant to the contrivers of the scheme. In the last session, 
the corps called the king's friends made a hardy attempt, 
all at once, to alter the right of election itself ; to put it into 
the power of the House of Commons to disable any person dis- 
agreeable to them from sitting in Parliament, without any other 

35 rule than their own pleasure ; to make incapacities, either 

31. The Cabal. 



CATTSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 43 

general for descriptions of men or particular for individuals ; 
and to take into their body persons who avowedly had never 
been chosen by the majority of legal electors nor agreeably to 
any known rule of law. 

The arguments upon which this claim was founded and com- 5 
bated are not my business here. Never has a subject been 
more amply and more learnedly handled, nor upon one side, 
in my opinion, more satisfactorily ; they who are not con- 
vinced by what is already written would not receive conviction 
though one arose from the dead. 10 

I too have thought on this subject ; but my purpose here is 
only to consider it as a part of the favorite project of govern- 
ment, to observe on the motives which led to it, and to trace 
its political consequences. 

The Cabal in the Case of Mr. Wilkes — Chosen for Mid- 15 
dlesex. — A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was 
the pretense of the whole. This gentleman, by setting himself 
strongly in opposition to the court Cabal, had become at once 
an object of their persecution and of the popular favor. The 
hatred of the court party pursuing, and the countenance of the 20 
people protecting, him, it very soon became not at all a question 
on the man but a trial of strength between the two parties. 
The advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the 
present, but not the only nor by any means the principal, ob- 
ject. Its operation upon the character of the House of Com- 25 
mons was the great point in view. The point to be gained by 
the Cabal was this : that a precedent should be established, 
tending to show that the favor of the people was not so sure a 



10. See Luke xvi. 31. 

11. Subject. Altering the right of election, as in the case of Mr. Wilkes. 
16. Wilkes was elected M. P. in 1757 and again in 1761 ; in No. 45 of his North 

Briton, he attacked the king in 1763. was arrested by "general warrant," 
and his papers seized; discharged, because as M. P. he was privileged from 
arrest; the general warrant declared unconstitutional; awarded £1000 for 
the seizure of his papers; the House voted No. 45 a " seditious libel, 1 ' caused 
it to be burned by the hangman, and expelled Wilkes; prosecuted by the 
Peers for republishing No. 45 and for printing an obscene poem; having 
previously gone to France, he was outlawed; returned in 1768, and his out- 
lawry was reversed; three times elected M. P. for the County of Middlesex; 
the House declared him incapable of a seat, and Col. Luttrell, not elected, 
was seated instead. Subsequent history unimportant. 



44 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

road as the favor of the court even to popular honors and 
popular trusts. A strenuous resistance to every appearance 
of lawless power, a spirit of independence carried to some de- 
gree of enthusiasm, an inquisitive character to discover, and 
5 a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of 
government, — these are the qualities which recommend a man 
to a seat in the House of Commons in open and merely popu- 
lar elections. An indolent and submissive disposition, a dis- 
position to think charitably of all the actions of men in power 
ioand to live in a mutual intercourse of favors with them, an 
inclination rather to countenance a strong use of authority 
than to bear any sort of licentiousness on the part of the peo- 
ple, — these are unfavorable qualities in an open election for 
members of Parliament. 

15 Through two pages Mr. Burke continues his exposition of the 
spirit of the Cabal. 

I will not believe, what no other man living believes, that 
Mr. "Wilkes was punished for the indecency of his publications 
or the impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a 

20 common slaughter of libelers and blasphemers, I could well 
believe that nothing more was meant than was pretended. 
But when I see that for years together full as impious and per- 
haps more dangerous writings to religion and virtue and order 
have not been punished nor their authors discountenanced, 

25 that the most audacious libels on royal majesty have passed 
without notice, that the most treasonable invectives against the 
laws, liberties, and constitution of the country have not met 

• with the slightest animadversion, I must consider this as a 
shocking and shameless pretense. Never did an envenomed 

30 scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and pri- 
vate, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and un- 
bridled license. All this while the peace of the nation must 
be shaken to ruin one libeler and to tear from the populace 
a single favorite. 

33. Mr. Wilkes, of course. 



CAtTSE OF THE PRESENT DISCOMTENTS. 45 

Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an obscure and con- 
temptible impunity. Does not the public behold, with indig- 
nation, persons not only generally scandalous in their lives but 
the identical persons who, by their society, their instruction, 
their example, their encouragement, have drawn this man into 5 
the very faults which have furnished the Cabal with a pre- 
tense for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favor, 
honor, and distinction which a court can bestow? Add but 
the crime of servility to every other crime, and the whole mass 
is immediately transmuted into virtue and becomes the just 10 
subject of reward and honor. When therefore I reflect upon 
this method pursued by the Cabal in distributing rewards and 
punishments, I must conclude that Mr. Wilkes is the object of 
persecution, not on account of what he has done in common 
with others who are the objects of reward but for that in which 15 
he differs from many of them ; that he is pursued for the 
spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices, — for his 
unconquerable firmness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenu- 
ous resistance against oppression. 

In this case therefore it was not the man that was to be 20 
punished, nor his faults that were to be discountenanced. Op- 
position to acts of power was to be marked by a kind of civil 
proscription. The popularity which should arise from such an 
opposition was to be shown unable to protect it. The quali- 
ties by which court is made to the people were to render every 25 
fault inexpiable and every error irretrievable. The qualities 
by which court is made to power were to cover and to sanctify 
everything. He that will have a sure and honorable seat in 
the House of Commons must take care how he adventures to 
cultivate popular qualities ; otherwise he may remember the 30 
old maxim, Breves et infaustos populi Romani amoves. If, 
therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to greater 
dangers than a disposition to servility, the principle which is 
the life and soul of popular elections will perish out of the 
constitution. , 35 

31. Fleeting and cruel are the likings of the people of Rome. Tacitus, 
Ann.,, lib. ii. c. 41. 



46 CAUSE OP THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

Through sis pages Mr. Burke pictures the dire consequences 
to the House of Commons and to the rights and liberties of the 
people if, as in the case of Mr. Wilkes and his constituents, the 
right of election is denied to the people, and the assumption of 
5 the House is upheld that it may unseat one chosen by the people 
and seat one not so chosen. 

The Cabal in the Matter of Paying the Crown Debts. 

— To complete the scheme of bringing our court to a resem- 
blance to the neighboring monarchies, it was necessary in 

io effect to destroy those appropriations of revenue which seem 
to limit the property, as the other laws had done the powers, 
of the crown. An opportunity for this purpose was taken 
upon an application to Parliament for payment of the debts of 
the civil list, which in 1769 had amounted to £513,000. Such 

15 application had been made upon former occasions, but to do 
it in the former manner would by no means answer the pres- 
ent purpose. 

"Whenever the crown had come to the Commons to desire a 
supply for the discharging of debts due on the civil list, it was 

20 always asked and granted with one of the three following 
qualifications, sometimes with all of them. Either it was 
stated that the revenue had been diverted from its purposes 
by Parliament ; or that those duties had fallen short of the 
sum for which they were given by Parliament, and that the in- 

25 tention of the legislature had not been fulfilled ; or that the 
money required to discharge the civil list debt was to be 
raised chargeable on the civil list duties. 

Through nearly two pages Burke shows that on some one of 
these three grounds the crown debts of Queen Anne, of George I., 
30 and of George II. had been paid. 

If this reign commenced with a greater charge than usual, 
there was enough and more than enough abundantly to supply 
all the extraordinary expense. That the civil list should have 
been exceeded in the two former reigns, especially in the 
35 reign of George the First, was not at all surprising. His reve- 
nue, was but £700,000 annually, if it ever produced so much 

31. That of George III. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 47 

clear. The prodigious and dangerous disaffection to the very- 
being of the establishment, and the cause of a Pretender then 
powerfully abetted from abroad produced many demands of 
an extraordinary nature both abroad and at home. Much 
management and great expenses were necessary. But the 5 
throne of no prince has stood upon more unshaken founda- 
tions than that of his present majesty. 

To have exceeded the sum given for the civil list and to 
have incurred a debt without special authority of Parliament 
was, prima facie, a criminal act ; as such, ministers ought IO 
naturally rather to have withdrawn it from the inspection 
than to have exposed it to the scrutiny, of Parliament. Cer- 
tainly they ought of themselves officially to have come armed 
with every sort of argument which by explaining could excuse 
a matter in itself of presumptive guilt. But the terrors of the 1 5 
House of Commons are no longer for ministers. 

On the other hand, the peculiar character of the House of 
Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them 
to call with a punctilious solicitude for every public account and 
to have examined into them with the most rigorous accuracy. 20 

The capital use of an account is, that the reality of the 
charge, the reason of incurring it, and the justice and neces- 
sity of discharging it should all appear antecedent to the pay- 
ment. No man ever pays first and calls for his account 
afterwards, because he would thereby let out of his hands the 25 
principal, and indeed only effectual, means of compelling a 
full and fair one. But, in national business, there is an ad- 
ditional reason for a previous production of every account. 
It is a check, perhaps the only one, upon a corrupt and prodi- 
gal use of public money. An account after payment is to no 30 
rational purpose an account. However, the House of Com- 
mons thought all these to be antiquated principles ; they were 
of opinion that the most parliamentary way of proceeding was 
to pay first what the court thought proper to demand, and to 
take its chance for an examination into accounts at some time 35 
of greater leisure. 

2. The son of James II. He invaded Great Britain in 1715. 



48 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

The nation had settled £800,000. a year on the crown, as 
sufficient for the purpose of its dignity, upon the estimate of 
its own ministers. When ministers came to Parliament and 
said that this allowance had not been sufficient for the purpose, 
5 and that they had incurred a debt of £500,000, would it not 
have been natural for parliament first to have asked how and 
by what means their appropriated allowance came to be in- 
sufficient? Would it not have savored of some attention to 
justice to have seen in what periods of administration this 

io debt had been originally incurred, that they might discover 
and, if need were, animadvert on the persons who were found 
the most culpable ? To put their hands upon such articles of 
expenditure as they thought improper or excessive, and to 
secure in future against such misapplication or exceeding? 

15 Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiosity, 
and no genuine parliamentary object. All the accounts which 
could answer any parliamentary end were refused or post- 
poned by previous questions. Every idea of prevention was 
rejected as conveying an improper suspicion of the ministers 

20 of the crown. 

When every leading account had been refused, many others 
were granted with sufficient facility. 

But, with great candor also, the House was informed that 
hardly any of them could be ready until the next session, some 

25 of them perhaps not so soon. But in order firmly to establish 
the precedent of payment previous to account, and to form it 
into a settled rule of the House, the god in the machine was 
brought down, nothing less than the wonder-working law of 
Parliament. It was alleged that it is the law of Parliament, 

3° when any demand comes from the crown, that the House must 
go immediately into the committee of supply, in which com- 
mittee it was allowed that the production and examination of 
accounts would be quite proper and regular. It was there- 
fore carried that they should go into the committee without 

35 delay and without accounts in order to examine with great 

27. Deus ex machina. An allusion to the Greek drama. 



CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 49 

order and regularity things that could not possibly come be- 
fore thern. After this stroke of orderly and parliamentary wit 
and humor, t hey went into the committee and very generously 
voted the payment. 

There was a circumstance in that debate too remarkable to 5 
be overlooked. This debt of the civil list was all along argued 
upon the same footing as a debt of the state contracted upon 
national authority. Its payment was urged as equally press- 
ing upon the public faith and honor ; and, when the whole 
year's account was stated, in what is called The Budget, the 10 
ministry valued themselves on the payment of so much public 
debt just as if they had discharged £500,000 Of navy or ex- 
chequer bills. . . . 

ISTor was the House at all more attentive to a provident 
security against future than it had been to a vindictive retro- 1 5 
spect to past mismanagements. I should have thought indeed 
that a ministerial promise, during their own continuance in 
office, might have been given, though this would have been 
but a poor security for the public. ... To put the matter 
beyond all doubt, in the speech from the throne, after thank- 20 
ing Parliament for the relief so liberally granted, the ministers 
inform the two houses that they will endeavor to confine the 
expenses of the civil government — within what limits, think 
you ? those which the law had prescribed ? Not in the least — 
" such limits as the honor of the crown can possibly admit." 2 5 

Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity 
which Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. 
They gave themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea 
of the honor of the crown, a full loose for all manner of dis- 
sipation and all manner of corruption. ... 3° 

Five hundred thousand pounds is a serious sum. But it is 
nothing to the prolific principle upon which the sum was 
voted ; a principle that may be well called the fruitful mother 
of a hundred more. Neither is the damage to public credit 
of very great consequence, when compared with that which 35 
results to public morals and to the safety of the constitution 
from the exhaustless mine of corruption opened by the pre- 



50 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 

cedent, and to be wrought by the principle of the late pay 
ment of the debts of the civil list. The power of discretionary 
disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of 
paying every debt of the civil list by another law of Parlia- 
5 ment, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a 
fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best 
appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was in- 
vented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun 
between the representatives and the people. The court fac- 
10 tion have at length committed them. 

In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the 
boldest staggered. 

Through six pages or more, Burke considers the inadequacy of 
a triennial bill and of a place bill to remedy the distempers of 
Parliament. 

Through the concluding pages of this great pamphlet, Burke is 
engaged in defining and defending party. 

But these topics, especially this last, are somewhat foreign to 
.the subject of the Cabal. For the sake of unity and to keep the 
pupil's interest to the close, it is deemed wise to bring this class* 
room edition of the pamphlet to an end here. 



A Text-Book on Rhetoric ; 

Supplementing the Development op the Science with 
Exhaustive Practice in Composition. 

A Course of Practical Lessons Adapted for use in High Schools and 
Academies, and in the Lower Classes of Colleges. 

BY 

BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn 

Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and one of the authors of 

Reed & KeUogg's "Graded Lessons in English" 

and "Higher Lessons in English." 



In preparing this work upon Rhetoric, the author's aim has been to 
write a practical text-book for High Schools, Academies, and the lower 
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believes that the aim of the study should be to put the pupil in posses- 
sion of an art, and that this can be done not by forcing the science into 
him through eye and ear, but by drawing it out of him, in products, 
through tongue and pen. Hence all explanations of principles are fol- 
lowed by exhaustive practice in Composition — to this everything is mack, 
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is sacrificed to show ; the book is intended 
for use, and the abundance of examples 
will constitute one of its chief merits in 
the eyes of the thorough teacher."— Prof. 
A. S. Cook, Johns Hopkins University, 
Baltimore, Md. 



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dealt with, dissected, and unfolded, to 
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Prest. of State Normal School, O$hkoth* 
Wis. 



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